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No fewer than three local illegal miners and 63 northern youth were arrested on Thursday by the officers of Amotekun corps in Osun.
The miners – Lawal Dauda, Abiodun Agboola and Obafemi Ademola – were arrested at a Kaolin mining site at Kitibi village, in Egbedore Local Government Area of the state.
This newspaper gathered that the southwest security agency, known as Amotekun, also impounded an excavator and a truck on the mining site.
Many of the illegal sites exposed by this newspaper have been busted by Amotekun in the last couple of months.
Our correspondent understands that those arrested on Thursday were handed over to the state Joint Task Force on combating crime on Friday.
63 northern youth
On the same Thursday, the local security outfit intercepted no fewer than 63 northern youths going to Ilesha and Ife axis in Osun for illegal mining activities.
They were intercepted at Ikire, Irewole Local Government Area of the state around 3 p.m.
“About 53 of them said they were coming from Zamfara State. They were hidden in a truck when they were intercepted”, the Director of Amotekun, Amitolu Shittu, said.
Non-essential interstate travel across Nigeria has been banned for about a month due to the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the ban, however, an investigation showed how corrupt security officials across Nigeria still enable interstate travel.
The arrested youth in Osun were interrogated by the police at Ikire Divisional Headquarters and Amotekun officers before being escorted back out of the state through Osun/Oyo boundary, along Osogbo/Ogbomosho road.